Blue Gender: The Warrior

Blue Gender: The Warrior is a retelling of the Blue Gender series with a few minor (and some major) adjustments. If you�re not willing or unable to sit through the entire 26 episodes of Blue Gender but still want to see what it�s all about then this movie would probably be the way to go, but that does come at a price. The Warrior is what you get when you try to cram a 26 episode series into a hour and a half long movie. A rushed piece of mediocrity that doesn�t leave much room for anything other than quick deaths and awkwardly paced character ... development. While it more or less maintains the plot elements featured in the series, it all but misses some of the strongest moments that redeemed the series during some of its darker hours. Not only are a lot of characters killed off way too quickly, but some of them aren�t even introduced. Also, I found it rather insulting that The Warrior used a lot of the scenes from the series out of their original context. For some reason they must have felt it was okay to show the series' final battle in the movie as being nothing but a random fight, and then one of the minor battles from the series turns out to be the movies climax. This irked me for some reason, and I can�t help but be reminded of that really bad Shenmue machinima that came with Shenmue 2. Don�t ask me why. I just felt the same level quality in The Warrior as I recall feeling when I first watched that horrible Shenmue �movie.�

Anyways, The Warrior isn�t all bad. Some scenes that were thrown in were actually quite interesting, such as the brawl between Marlene and Yuji. Also that when Yuji wakes up after 22 years of sleep his hair is actually long and has to be cut. Good job there. But so many other things are missing that it�s hard to fully appreciate the story for what it�s worth. The character development and ultimate destiny between Yuji and Marlene generally stay the same, but because this movie sums everything up in just a little over a hour and a half it feels very weak and synthetic. To make matters worse, a lot of the most necessary plot arcs are nowhere to be seen in the movie. The introduction of the Sleeper Brigade and their eventual fall from grace, and the scientist who decides to take over Second Earth by overthrowing its government are two of the most important plot devices that never come into play in The Warrior. Simply put, The Warrior doesn�t feel as alive as its series counterpart does. It just doesn�t do a very good job at summing up the entire series (if that was even what it was trying to do, as it�s hard to tell with all of the reused animation from the series), and quite frankly if you watched this after watching the series (like me) you would probably be pretty turned off (like me). It�s not entirely bad on its own, but fails at being anything more than just average. A few things are improved here and there, but not nearly enough for me to suggest you watch this instead or before the series. If you�re a die hard Blue Gender fan then I guess you can appreciate this more, but if you�ve never touched the series before then I�d recommend you just stick to the episodes and stay away from this flick.

My Score: 6.5

Version Watched: English Dub

If your going to watch Blue Gender the movie I recommend taking the time to watch the series instead. The movie is little more than the 26 or so episodes compressed into 90 min. Watching the series first there were some changes to the storyline to make it all fit, but you miss out so much on the story that your left scrathing your head.

One of the biggest issues I had with it was the lack of development between the two main characters, not going to throw in any spoilers but with the level of development and the lever of dedication I guess you can ... say in the end is lacking. They also changed the ending of the series in the movie which I prefered over the movie much more.

In summary watch the series :)

Basically a compressed mashup of the original 26-episode anime with an alternate ending, and not a good one at that.
You see, the original anime series has 26 episodes, each of which are 23 minutes long, which adds up to 598 minutes. All of that got compressed down into a 90-minutes anime film. This is roughly 664% reduction, and it shows - with so much content being cut, the overall story feels incoherent, character development that was well-shown in the original suddenly feels very sudden and abrupt. Memorable characters were removed in the process too.

I'm giving it a generous 4/10, because the animation, sound, voice acting, ... etc. are still good, and even as a standalone anime-film, it's not unwatchable per se, but it truly pales in comparison to the original anime series, to which I also meted out its fair share of criticism (I reviewed that one too).

I didn't like the original anime's pacing after Episode 12, believe that it went really went downhill after Episode 20 and I believe that its ending was a real letdown... but the film basically took all of those questionable stuff that I just criticised, and replaced them with absolutely nothing, which is even worse.

The first hour is of the film was made up of the first 12 episodes of the show (the parts from before our heroes visited Second Earth), albeit heavily cut, which makes it feel incoherent. The last 30 minutes - the parts after the heroes got to Second Earth - were changed, completely different from the original anime. The whole subplot about the Council Members being evil, or there being a schism against them, are gone. The whole subplot about the B-cells? Gone. Marlene and Yuji living happily ever after in a primitive village? Gone.
Instead, we get the aftermath of a battle, which our heroes just barely survive, with the Blue retreating. It's literally a cliffhanger, and not a good one at that.

All in all, I would NOT recommend this. Watch the series instead. If you've watched the series, I guess you can watch this if you're curious, but it's really not worth your time. None the less, I'm giving it an extremely generous 4/10, because I recognise some of its objective artistic merits, even if it's not really worth to watch.